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Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. ET
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Management of Knightscope, Inc. (NASDAQ:KSCP) reported a transition to a managed service provider model that integrates autonomous security robots, software orchestration, and licensed human agents. The company completed the full-quarter integration of its Security Force acquisition, which contributed to record quarterly revenue and a second consecutive quarter of positive gross margin. Development efforts focused on the K7 robot and the Signals platform, which utilizes 3D digital twin technology for security oversight. Management stated that growth is supported by an expanding client base of 434 customers and an increase in technical headcount across all departments.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining Knightscope's second quarter 26 earnings call. I am Apoorv Dwivedi, Executive Vice President and chief financial officer. And I am joined by William Santana Li, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer. By now, you should have had a chance to review our second quarter 26 earnings release, which was published at 01:05 p. M. Pacific Time just after market's close. Before we begin, please note that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Of 2 thousand. Including statements regarding our goals, growth, prospects, product road map, and outlook.
Actual results may differ materially due to the risks and uncertainties described under Risk Factors in our most recent Annual report on form 10 k as updated by our other SEC filings. Forward-looking statements speak only as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update them except as required by law. With that, it is my pleasure to turn this call over to Bill.
William Santana Li: Thank you, Apoorv, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I am going to start with the business and marketing highlights from the second quarter. What we won what we built, and how we are setting up the second half of the year. Then I will hand the call back over to Apoorv who will take you through the financials in detail So let's dive right in. The second quarter of 26 was the best quarter In Nightscope's history. Revenue came in at 9 million, up more than 200% from 2.7 million in the same quarter last year. And a new quarterly record for the company.
We now serve 434 clients across 42 states. That marks 2 consecutive record quarters following first quarter revenue that was up 106% year-over-year. Back in May, I stood in front of institutional investors in New York and made a simple commitment. Each quarter, better than the last. We have delivered exactly what we said we would do. In the second quarter, we built on the momentum from the first quarter of 26 and we believe that we have laid the groundwork to keep it going forward. This compounding effect is the result of relentless commitment to execution across the entire organization. Apoorv will walk you through the drivers behind those numbers in just a few minutes.
The integration of our recent acquisition, now known as our security force, is proceeding as planned and the collaboration between the teams is amazing to witness. Seeing firsthand the team collaborate on our new h 1 wearable that will define the future augmented security agent or ASA is truly invigorating. The teams are operating and beginning to work as 1. As we look to expand our offerings with our current client base. This was our second acquisition as a public company, and the discipline the team has shown closing it filing it, and now integrating it without missing a beat tells you a lot about the caliber of the team.
More importantly, it strengthens exactly how we intend to differentiate Nightscope. The unique combination of hardware software, and humans delivered as 1 managed service. This team has been working on efficiencies delivering tangible results including cutting the assembly time for 1 of our product lines by almost 80%. We have grown the depth of our technical team significantly, as we are seeing interest in Knightscope grow significantly. We restructured our field service network in Northern California and the Northeast Region by building relationships with local service providers. And by insourcing field services in Southern California to provide better services while lowering our service delivery costs. We also strengthened the leadership in the company.
Recruiting multiple senior executives with a track record of scaling companies, Growth with discipline, that is the operating model. The k 7 are all new autonomous security robot. Passed its alpha prototype gate review. And we remain on track for initial deployments in the fourth quarter of 26 as we move into the beta-prototype phase. In April, we announced our partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, the top robotics institution in the country. Whose graduate robotics program is now working directly on autonomous patrol technology under the guidance of our engineering team. We are taking a disciplined approach to the K7's market introduction focused on success in the field. Client interest in the K7 deployment continues to grow.
Simultaneously, significant work is well underway on an all new signals platform, designed to orchestrate our autonomous robots stationary devices sensors, augmented security agents, and our mission intelligence remote monitoring. An industry first that combines pioneering proprietary 3 d digital twin technology with AI agents to eliminate blind spots and provide an auditable trail for proof of work. Hardware, software, and humans working as 1 team, 1 force. Now let me spend a few minutes on the brand. Because security is not sold; it is adopted through trust. And building trust at a national scale requires showing up everywhere. With clients, with the media, with communities, with recruits, and with Wall Street.
This quarter, we sharpened our positioning Knightscope is a managed service provider. The only company uniquely combining hardware, software, and humans into 1 integrated offering. We are building the nation's first autonomous security force. That message resonated strongly with institutional investors during our non-deal roadshows in New York and its momentum is building. The team has been hard at work preparing for GSX 26. Security industry's largest gathering, September 14 through the 16 in Atlanta, Georgia, where we will officially launch the autonomous security force on the biggest stage in our industry. If you are attending, come and see us. 1 more signal of momentum. In June, we hosted a career night at our headquarters. Here in Silicon Valley.
And there was literally a line around the building to get in. The best people in the country want to work on this mission. And we are hiring the best of the best. With that, I will turn it over to Apoorv to take you through the numbers.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: Thanks, Bill. Revenue for the second quarter was 9 million, an increase of 228% compared with 2.7 million in the second quarter of 25. And a new quarterly record. Growth was driven by the full quarter contribution from the Security Force acquisition, In addition to our core ASR subscriptions, and ACD deployments. Gross margin was 700 thousand or approximately 7% of revenue. Compared with a gross loss of 900 thousand in the prior-year period. This marks our second consecutive quarter of positive gross margin. Driven by full quarter impact of the immediately accretive Security Force acquisition and margin expansion across both technology product lines. Demonstrating that our integrated technology plus services model is structurally more profitable than either business alone.
Operating expenses were 13.8 million. Compared with 5.4 million in the second quarter of 25. Primarily driven by investments in R&D, to support the development of our next generation technology. As well as increased headcount across all departments and the integration of the security force. Despite the 3.9 million increase in R&D expenses, from last year, The acquisition improved our operating leverage by adding higher margin revenue leveraging our existing operating infrastructure. We expect these benefits to continue and strengthen as we achieve our new product development milestones. Net loss for the quarter was 14.1 million or $0.79 per share. Compared with a net loss of 6.3 million or $0.90 per share in the prior-year period.
This is primarily due to the higher OpEx highlighted earlier as well as approximately 1 million in other expenses related to the fair value and the change in the fair value of the contingent consideration or earn out due to the seller of the recent acquisition. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of 8.2 million. This is flat to the prior year, and an improving cash conversion cycle, due to the effects of the acquisition. In summary, record revenue immediately accretive margins, from the acquisition, expanding margins from maturing machines and network and service efficiencies, and continued discipline in expense management.
The financial profile of the company is strengthening in step with the operational execution Bill described earlier. And now, we will open it up to Q&A. So, Bill, what I will do is I will read the questions to you.
William Santana Li: You will give me all the easy questions.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: I will give you all the easy questions. All the hard questions go to you.
William Santana Li: The really bad ones.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: We will send an email. So the first question, from the autonomous security force strategy. Bundles machines, software, and licensed human agents. What are the unit economics? What is the blended ASF contract more profitable per client than a stand alone robot lease?
William Santana Li: Okay. I think we start off where humans cannot do everything. And technology cannot do everything. But that combination is extremely, extremely powerful. And so what we need to think about is how do we solve the problem for the client, not trying to optimize margins for individual discrete items. If you go pull just this contracts in the margins for traditional guarding unarmed they are not very attractive. Right? They are positive, but they are not software margins. If you are able to scale software, you know, you are 60, 70, 80% gross margins. Probably on the low end, you are 10, 20% on the on the human guarding side.
If you are able at scale, and we have done this, remember Yep. We did the analysis of our longest standing clients. You are somewhere in the 50, 60, 65% gross margin over that 5-year period.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: So the JEDI mind trick is to be able to land with, what a chief security officer would accept today which are licensed armed and unarmed agents. And then over time become that trusted adviser. Hey. We have operated at your facility for quite some time now. I would not really stretch you know, the staff that way. You might wanna consider based on the data that we have.
William Santana Li: You might wanna shuffle some things around and add some technology maybe pay the team, more appropriately, And over time, we want I want to see, and this is gonna take some time to scale, but I want to see us you know, in the 50%, 55%, 60% gross margin net when all said and done. And, again, we need to focus on solving the client's problem and stop--as in, I came--driving our team crazy. Stop selling widgets. Do not, you know, please buy my robot. Please buy my sensor. Please, you know, hire my agent.
We really need to focus on positive outcomes for our clients, hopefully, significantly improved quality, and over time reduce those costs, So, the last bit I would say it is deter. you want to deter negative activity before it occurs, and that could be a human presence. It could be technology. You want to be able to detect. Mostly, that is technology, where you are able to do say, superhuman capabilities that a human would not be able to process. Then you need to actually respond. You are saying, 'Hi. Let me have all these alerts and stuff,' and you do not respond, or 90% of the alerts are false, kind of problematic.
But the key here is the data wheel. Is being able to learn over time. So deter, detect, respond, learn. Improve the algorithms improve the technology, improve our standard operating procedures, and over time, you become that much more effective for the client, if you do that really well, that client will tell the next client. Yep.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: And I think part of that also is know, going back to the outcome. So unit economics work, when we are selling to a traditional audience, and we kind of are. But expectations are traditional. Oh, I am gonna go buy a camera. I am gonna go buy a guarding service. I am going to go buy access control, I am gonna go buy something else. Each 1 has its own unique, you know, unique economics. Or the--the cameras do not talk to the guard. Right. The guard does not talk to the remote monitoring team. The remote monitoring team does not talk to the investigation team.
Why is the chief security officer having to manage 8, 10, 12 different vendors? They are all very, you know, competent in invoicing you. But can you actually account for everything that happened with an audible proof of work. And a track record of everything that happened at that location. And I think that is what we will prove out is that a solutions based sales approach takes away the unit economics and focuses on outcomes.
William Santana Li: Next question is, what is the appetite for additional M&A what criteria would you be looking for in a potential transaction? Is the incremental revenue the priority or something else? Okay. So This recent acquisition was the 25th in my professional career. Doing deals as I often say, the deal part is actually, relatively speaking, easy. it is the day 1 and integration after is going to make or break a deal. So you have got to be very careful what you pick. I think it probably sits in 3 buckets.
The first bucket there is probably somebody is going to do the research here, but plus or minus maybe 8 thousand guarding firms in The US, plus or minus maybe 6 thousand have more than 100 employees. I believe most of them owned by boomers that are retiring. The kids do not wanna take over the business. And the large big box staffing companies are not likely to buy them, so you literally have an illiquid market. Which is an interesting dynamic for doing a roll up. I think if we are a private equity shop, you would look at the recent acquisition as you bought a platform company.
You have got a growing company, a strong management team, actual results, and something that you want to build on. So I think there is opportunities for us to organically grow the security force Maybe there is some bolt on acquisitions as we get further along. So that is the first bucket. Second bucket we have been actively looking at remote monitoring companies. This could be immediately accretive because that remote monitoring company likely does not have a security force component. Yep. And likely does not have a technology or robotics component. Yep. But does have a client base cash flowing and we could be highly synergistic.
Again, we need to be kinda little picky here, make sure we are careful. But we have been shopping for that think lastly, we live here in Silicon Valley. 22 thousand startups, as they often say, some of the most brilliant minds in the world. Backed by millions and sometimes billions of dollars. Literally 95% fail. And so there is all kinds of goodies and assets sitting around at a point in time. It could be a piece of technology. It could be algorithm. It could be a sensor. It could be a team. So we are always on lookout there. So those would be the 3 buckets.
Continued inorganic growth on the security force side, remote monitoring, opportunities that, like, likely to be highly synergistic. And then the last 1 would be on the technology side.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: I would probably even go a little bit, you know, to kinda summarize that if you think about our strategy, which is hardware plus software plus humans. Right? Really good at the hardware. Hardware, we have. The humans pieces, we are working on that, and that is where the opportunity is. And the software is where the opportunity is because, again, there is so many people working on some really brilliant technologies and analytics and software if we can find the right 1 to plug in, why do not we just do that?
And then, again, if you go on our brand new shiny website at nightscope.com, it literally says on the home page, for you, the chief security officers of The United States Of America. And so any decision that we would be making would be in your interest for us to build the most powerful autonomous security force offering to really fix the client's problems and, frankly, our nation's problem site.
William Santana Li: Next question. Let's talk about clients. Can you give your perspective on client retention renewals among the legacy SecurityForce client base? I am sure this is not 100% accurate but 1 of the reasons we made the acquisition was very rarely--to zero--have they, the Security Force, lost the client. They may have fired a client, which is different. Yep. But the retention has been really strong there. I think, 1, I look at our client base. We are now 434 plus clients across 42 states. If you go to our there is a new investor updated deck. If you go to ir.knightscope.com, our new IR site, you can pull that down.
I think there is a slide on there that reflects something to the effect of if you take the top 5, of the 434 clients, their security spend is on the order of about $850 million. So what is the easiest sale you are ever gonna get? Frankly, an existing client. Yep. And so I have been very much focused on thinking through strategies and approaches on how do we leverage the 434 and see what good we can do for them. And along the way, we have met a lot of folks that are struggling with the existing kind of setup.
So there is gonna be primary focus on existing clients, with some additional new clients as we as we go along. But the opportunity is certainly there. it is taken a very long time to go build the foundation to make all this happen. But this is a unique opportunity and time and a unique company. This is a managed service provider for physical security that is never existed. And, knowing what we know, let's just say everyone in the building's in good spirits. Right?
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: Number 4. Can you expand on the meaningful synergies from the Security Force acquisition?
William Santana Li: This is an easy 1. It is easy? You should wait then.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: Meaningful synergies. So I think we wanna look at it from a few different angles.
William Santana Li: Obviously, you have seen the numbers. there is a significant component on the revenue growth. You know, triple digit growth 2 quarters in a row. Is, kinda not normal. And over time, Wall Street will begin to learn that you cannot ignore a company growing triple digit in a market with a $230 billion TAM and working on robotics and AI and a unique set of humans in the loop. Like, that is not something you are gonna be able to ignore. The best thing that we can do is continue to improve the financial performance of the company, continue to grow, communicate, communicate, communicate. But at the end of the day, we know we are right.
We just need to execute. So in terms of the synergies, there is 434 clients you might imagine a large portfolio of nationwide blue chip clients that have only had security force kind of footprint I guess, pun intended and no technology. So there is a significant opportunity where we already landed. Let's go expand and be very thoughtful about okay, Please tell us what issues you are having. Not by generalities, that particular address in that particular location, what incidents have you had, what is the budget? Where are you struggling? How can we be helpful? Have you thought about x, y, and z? You know, what is the lighting look like? what is the signage look like?
Try to be that thoughtful, trusted adviser that hopefully we can win that trust over time. And go expand with technology. Similarly, you are kind of cross-selling doing the other way. Yep. So we have a lot of clients that have only technology, that have an existing security say, staffing model with a lot of the big box staffing companies. And are not too particularly fond of the quality of service. And so for us to say, hey. Listen. We offer executive protection. We have armed agents. We have unarmed agents. We will be unveiling the h 1 wearable here shortly, so we will have augmented security agents, and no 1 in the industry will have.
How can we help you with that? So there is that kind of cross synergy. Is really important. And I think the second 1, third 1. First was financial. Second, cross selling. Third is just cultural. 1 of the most difficult parts of M&A is again, not just the integration, it is people. it is people, people, people, and trying to get everyone in the same boat rowing in the same direction is not easy. Yep. Sometimes public companies have to do stuff that a normal private company would never do and vice versa. And so little by little, we gotta kinda get that to work. But I will say this in good form.
The security force team is highly disciplined. Command and control, Follow orders, and off you go. The kind of original technology side of Nightscope Silicon Valley, Scrum, let's kind of pie-in-the-sky, Think about how we are gonna do this. Let's collaborate and all this other thing. And for this to be successful, it is not 1 or the other. You actually need to think about Yep. How to do this so that you can get the best of both worlds. Absolutely. You need to add some discipline command and control on a little bit too much of a loose process. And then at the same time, you cannot stifle everything. Right. Right?
Do not know if this is gonna be true. We are gonna end it. We are gonna find out. But my gut tells me it is probably 2 thirds command and control because we are going to have a very large footprint out in the Yep. In the wild. And you cannot just tell an agent to, say, go be autonomous. Do whatever you kind of feel is right, or that because that is not gonna work. But at the same time, the security force team has so much knowledge, experience, and relationships, and insights from the industry and that influence on the technology, We are already seeing some benefits of that.
We actually have agents here today testing out the prototypes for the H1 wearable. And so think that is where 1 plus 1 equals 7. I agree.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: I think on the on the top line, if you think about, you know, go-to-market strategy, we are uniquely positioned to go after that outcome. Based approach, which we think has the right positioning to do so. Yep. Simultaneously, as you are you know, we have talked about this. Look, if you look at the P&L, below the gross margin, the OpEx side, we have already started integrating finance, integrating HR, integrating so those synergies in the app the shared services model, internal to the corporation allows us to kind of do some of the cultural things you were talking about.
And financially, I think it is also really important that in order to be public It costs literally millions of dollars. Right? Absolutely. And just because we add more revenue and more capabilities, more everything, we can now sweat the assets that we have So a crude example would be like, if we had solely 1 client, but we needed to remotely monitor the health of those machines, and the security aspects of it. You still need 4 people to run 27. Right? it is not. Right? But if you added, you know, 30 more clients, do you need to--30 times 4? No. No. You do not need to do that.
So Yep. there is some scaling; as we add, there is more efficiencies as we continue to scale. Absolutely. And you are not going to, you know, quintuple the marketing department because you quintuple the revenue. Right? Right. So there is a lot of leverage coming. And as we committed during the recent non-deal roadshows, every quarter, is going to be better than the last, and that is a tall order. We have been working very hard, and we have got 2 quarters to prove it. We just need to keep at it. Question on pipeline. Any thoughts on you know, we do not share pipeline data, but it looks like we are getting asked for some indication.
William Santana Li: I think the best thing for us to say is we have 434 clients. Yep. Somebody can go do a guesstimate with Claude or whatever. I might have done that I do not know. This is not an auditable number because it is literally a guesstimate from AI, but those 34 is probably $3 to $6 billion. Of annual security spend. If 5 is $850, Right, you can imagine it is somewhere in the in the billions range. So I think that is the most important focus then we need to focus on the technology itself, We have got a lot of we are at all time high as Apoorv noted, on expenditures in r and d. Why is that?
We have got an all new k 7. That everyone's really excited about. Takes time and money to go do that. We have got an all-new H1 wearable that is gonna go on our agents and our agents only. that is gonna know, also take some time and money. Yep. We have got the all new signals platform, a piece of software that is gonna orchestrate everything hardware, in terms of the robots, the stationary devices, the sensors, plus our agents, plus our mission intelligence remote monitoring, that piece of software is an industry first. This is, like, literally we are going to remotely monitor a location in 3 dimensions.
This is gonna be absolutely exhilarating and invigorating to showcase this at GSX and actually put it into the field, not a science fair project. So all that R&D is gonna have, I think, a very handsome return on investment over the coming years. Absolutely.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: I think the last question is somebody asked, 'I would love to hear Bill's thoughts on when he believes the public will catch on and the stock price will rise. Oh my.
William Santana Li: Like I said, despite all the emails, texts, voice mails, I do not control the stock price. You do. So all I can do and the team can do is improve our financial performance of the company. We can grow the company, And we can communicate, communicate, communicate. The rest is literally up to the to market. And I will just restate what I said earlier. If you think about where the company is going, we have all the pieces are all now beginning to get integrated into 1 holistic managed service provider. We know that this is a massive pain point for this multibillion dollar industry.
And so if we just focus on fixing the damn problem, like, you are gonna get rewarded for it. So the best thing the team can do is continue to focus on execution, Top-line revenue growth up,, cost of goods down, careful with our fixed cost basis, scale things up, and get the technology to do magical things that no 1 in the industry is gonna be able to do or can do, and then put the numbers up on every Q and every K. And then the way the stock should respond is simply on the numbers.
And that is why we urge you to look at the changes from all these years prior to what happened in the first quarter what happened in the second quarter, And now start thinking, what the third, fourth quarter, and next year is gonna look like. We are building something extremely special. And all the pieces of the pie are all the pieces of the entire puzzle are falling in together And I have literally and this is not the founder being the founder in a kind of glass-half-full or building a glass factory. I have never literally been this excited about Nightscope's future in all 13 years of my career here. We have got an unbelievable team.
We have got unbelievable technology. We have got existing clients. We just need to focus on execution. And on that last point, how do you derisk the execution side? You hire brilliant people. Absolutely. With that, I think this concludes our Q&A. I will, hand it back to you if you have any comments, Thank you, Apoorv, for doing this.
Apoorv S. Dwivedi: Let me leave you with this. In the second half of the year, we expect to deliver on these 4 things. First, initial K7 deployments in the fourth quarter. Second, the official launch of the autonomous security force at GSX in September. Third, the initial launch of Signals, our software orchestration platform, And fourth, the same thing you have seen the last 2 quarters. So thank you to our clients for their trust, to our shareholders for their support, and most of all, to the absolutely relentless Knightscope team. 1 team, 1 mission, 1 force.
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